At the End of the Day- SYOC
by Pink Phoenix Potter
Summary: Because some of them may hate each other's guts, but at the end of the day, they're family. And family means sticking together. SYOC- You may submit through review or through PM, but I prefer PM.
1. Chapter 1

The Year: 2013

The Date: September 1st

They are the students. The students of Hogwarts.

Over the past several years, there has been peace. Voldemort is dead. He will never rise again. And while Harry Potter is respected and still famous, not as many obsess over him as they used to. It's peace. Happily ever after.

James Potter is a first year. A hilarious guy. He's known as a bit of a mischief maker, but he's a good big brother. And he's not as bad as everyone insinuates. Really.

There's a different side of him. The side that loves herbology and astronomy, who spends all of his time outside watching the night sky or in his garden. The side that's a good big brother, a caring academic who loves being outside.

And then there's the side that knows that none of this can last.

Then there's Adalia. Adalia is James's best friend ever since they've lived in Godric's Hollow. She's the daughter of some muggle CEO. A famous guy. And he sees past her noble and arrogant exterior to see a girl who really doesn't know what she's doing, but overall has a good heart and would rather be elbow deep in a 1980's engine than in a stuffy suit meeting whoever her father thinks she should meet.

But now she's a muggleborn. And she's known about magic for years, because a young James had a hard time keeping his mouth shut, but now he's dragging her into his world and he's hoping his Dad was wrong, that the peace can last.

These are just a few. A few of the students from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Because the students of a class...well, maybe some of them hate each other's guts, maybe some of them get jealous of other people taking their prospective love interests. But the students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, through detentions and odd teachers and learning magic, become a real family, and family means sticking together in the toughest of times.

A new darkness is rising within the Wizarding World. There have been reports of possessions, a dark iris in the face of a friend, and then terrible things have been done. And when the smoke has left, the person in question has no memory of whatever they've done. It's been driving James's dad crazy trying to keep up with everything, as head auror. It's been a trying time for James's mother.

And everyone says they're children and they shouldn't worry, they're too young- but James knows that's exactly what they said to his father, and look how that turned out.

So he's scared. Everyone is scared. This is new, this is weird, and this brings back memories of the Dark Lord. Except he really is dead. He was killed by Harry Potter. So now no one knows what this new danger is.

There's romance, drama, and the odd things that only students who are at Hogwarts, but at the center of it all is just a bunch of students trying to survive and save their safe haven, the school they all know so well. The isolated stories will tell of the man facing his worst fear, or the guy who just wants to keep his best friend and his siblings safe. Because he's not. He won't ever be.

It's the ride of a lifetime. Who will be a part of it?

SYOC form

Full, Legal Name:

Nickname(s) (if any):

Gender:

House:

Wand:

Blood Status (pureblood, muggleborn, etc.):

Opinion on Blood Status:

Hair Color:

Texture:

Length:

Does He/She Style it in any Way Most of the Time?:

Eye Color:

Glasses, Contacts, or No?:

Any Distinguishing Qualities? (long lashes, wears makeup, etc.):

Body Type:

Height:

Weight:

Personal Style:

Skin Color:

Other Appearance Details (i.e Facial structure, birthmarks, etc.):

Personality (PLEASE include faults/weaknesses):

Skills:

Favorite Activities/Subjects:

Favorite Color?

Favorite Food?

Best Subject:

Worst Subject:

Favorite Subject (if different):

Least Favorite Subject (if different):

Nationality:

Family (Siblings? Do they live with their parents, or someone else? Why? What's their extended family like? Relationships?):

Personal History:

Friends:

Any Special Powers: (Outside of wand magic) (Such as Elemental, Parseltoungue, Prophetic, etc.)

Love Interest Plot Ideas?:

Do you have any plot ideas? (we can PM back and forth if you want):

A couple of final author's notes:

I'm super excited for this story. I'm looking foreward to seeing all your characters and some ideas for the plots of these, and I have my own for the overall, along with some ideas for James and Adalia's personal stories.

The SYOC will stay open throughout the story, so if it's chapter 36 and you want to submit a character, go ahead? I may ask to change the age and use it as another character to build the world.

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to cap main characters down to four. More than that I simply can't handle. I assume I'm going to have five openings for Slytherin, five for Ravenclaw, five for Hufflepuff, three for Gryffindor, though I can allow one more or less for each house depending on how many submissions I actually end up getting. And some of them will be more minor. Just like Ron, Hermione, and Harry are the Golden Trio in the books, Neville's important, and the others are a bit more supportive (like Dean and Seamus). Here, we're going to have a good group of six, and the rest will be more supporting. For main students, please only submit first years until the next story-year. Then you can also submit younger students to play a supporting role.

If you like, you can also submit characters that aren't students. Teachers, house elves, other adults! They all have a use somewhere. Even older students, if you like. Help me build a world, here! :)

Thanks for giving this crazy little SYOC a chance. I'm sure it'll be, like I said, a crazy ride, but it'll be worthwhile, I think.

Pink Pheonix Potter

Edit: I didn't realize until after I posted this I forgot to add "house" to the form...

Wow...

I assume that a few of you guys tried to alert me of this in PMs. I'm sorry, I feel really stupid...

As for now, I'll be able to actually see your PMs by 4:00 today. I promise I'm not just ignoring your PMs, but apparently there's a rule that I can't see PMs until 4:00. Do keep sending them, though! I'm sure they're all fantastic!

Another Edit: I noticed a review saying that someone wanted more of a hook. Looking over, I guess I can see his/her point (thanks for the advice, Radio Free Death). I added a couple of paragraphs to the description, and decided to add a story-ish bit down here.

Parvati Patil had herself knee deep in a rather large amount of paperwork.

It was times like this she wished she had her sister's love of studious tasks that, oddly, included paperwork. Anyone who lived in this world was required to present several thousand of these evil little sheets to provide proof of pretty much everything they did...even tiny details no one really had to care about. Who started this system of paperwork and more paperwork? She lived in the Wizarding World, and the only difference from muggle paperwork was that she worked on parchment and wrote out the necessary information with a quill.

Still, it had to be done, and Parvati knew on some level that most of it was actually necessary, and not something given to her out of spite. Plus, she was the one who put at least half of it off to go to dinner with her old friend, Lavender Brown, the other day and discuss how their lives were going.

She was going to be here a while. It had been two years since she had introduced the wizarding version of a movie theater, using a complicated combination of a pensieve and an old crystal ball. She and Padma had come up with it together. But Padma had left the project a year ago for a job at the Ministry, leaving Parvati to fill out more and more paperwork. Overall, though, it was successful. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, and she'd sprouted up a new industry in wizarding entertainment. It was mostly muggle movies, but it came down to why she had so much paperwork tonight- the theater would be hosting the first wizard-made film next week. Hopefully, she could draw in some new patrons.

Still, hunched over filling out tax reports for the Ministry, she didn't notice the cloud of black smoke behind her dark hair. Nor did she notice as the smoke moved closer, like a living entity, and penetrate the skin just below her neck.

After that, it was too late.

The smoke spread out in poor Parvati's body within a fraction of an instant. First, she tensed. Then everything went black, and she was no longer in control. Deep, dark black turned the irises of her eyes into flat disks.

She looked around with a schooled expression, not seeming to care how much paperwork was strewed around the messy desk. The quill pen was set down, and she slowly got up. She then walked out of the door to her office with a rigid posture Parvati didn't normally possess.

She then walked into the theater room, took her wand out of her pocket, and began the quick series of enchantments that would change the movie her patrons were currently watching into something much more sinister.

When Parvati woke up, she knew something was wrong.

At first, she thought she'd only dozed off a bit. It wasn't like she'd been getting a large amount of sleep lately. But she knew she didn't fall asleep in the projection room. Her last memory was in her office, and no one entered the projection room while the movie was going unless there was an emergency. There were enchantments.

Then she looked up, and her blood ran cold.

The sign would have been pretty, really. Two lines coming at an angle out of a circle, looping around themselves and connecting at a point. The problem was that in this world, that sign had negative connotations. People were screaming. Her customers were screaming.

She shook her head, and quickly went into action.

After a check around, she determined that there were no killings- this time. All the employees were where they were supposed to be. When they made an announcement about technical difficulties, they had triple checked to make sure there was no one missing. It seemed to be just a warning. But Parvati wasn't an auror. She knew who she had to call.

She considered herself lucky. Not everyone in the world had Harry Potter's direct floo line, to his work at least. But he was always up for a quick chat with old friends from Hogwarts. Today, however, wouldn't be social.

She ran to her office, grabbing floo powder from the tray and throwing herself down in front of the fireplace. "Harry Potter's office, Ministry of Magic!" she yelled, tossing the floo powder in and thrusting her face into the flames.

She'd seen Harry's office before, a few times, but things had changed a little. His desk was quite a lot more organized than her own, even if the stack of paperwork might have been higher. There were several pictures on his walls of his wife- he'd married Ginny Weasley- and his three children, James, Albus, and Lily. There were even a few of James, his eldest, and a olive skinned redhead with her hair stuck strait back in a braid. Parvati barely recognized her- a good friend of James's whom she'd never known a name for.

"Parvati or Padma?" Harry walked over from his desk, having noticed her, and knelt in front of the flames. After all these years, he still couldn't tell them apart to save his life. "In any case, what's going on?" Social calls normally weren't for him at seven o' clock at night. Everyone knew that, unless there was a large raid or a lot of paperwork, he liked to be home by that time.

"Parvati." She gave a grim look to him. "Harry, the theater's been attacked. There was the sign for the Black Phantom."

Alright...that's it. Not sure if that's what people were looking for or not, but it sure was fun to write :) Keep on submitting characters!


	2. Chapter 2

I'll write another prequel in here, just to make sure everyone is getting this author's note:

I am currently not able to access the PM system. I will be able to access the PM system by approx. 4:00 East Coast time. For me, that means six. You can calculate from there.

I promise that I will get to everyone's characters as soon as I can, but since the PMs are so long I can only see a fraction of them on my email. I can tell you now that your character will be used somehow, but I can't tell you how until the actual application is right in front of me.

I have put this in the previous chapter, and edited it a few times, but no one's really noticed, so I thought I better make this clear.

So, here's a continuation of the story bit from the previous chapter, as a thank you for your patience.

James was in his garden that morning.

He loved being outside, and would take time down in his special garden whenever he could grab the time.

Really, he was extroverted (and he would curse Albus and his word-of-the-day calenders sometime for making him learn that word)...at least, he thought so. But he hated the fame with having Harry Potter for a father. Just his luck that's what happened.

Which meant that, in the wizarding world, James would have so many people being friends with him just so they could meet Harry Potter, or, less often, Ginny Weasley (his Mum had been a professional Quiditch player before James was born, after all). He liked his friends, but he thought the fake ones needed to get a life. After all, if all you did was manipulate people, then you would end up with no ties. His Uncle Draco had taught him that.

Here, at least, it was quiet. No reporter was going to come nosing around in his greenhouse, no fake friend was going to barge in here. Only a select few people even knew he liked to be in here.

"James." An olive skinned girl with bright red, wavy hair that was twisted back and eyes to match Al's, poked her head in. "Thought I'd find you in here."

"Addie, really." He layed on the sarcasm a bit heavily, but he knew she wouldn't take offence. "Where else would I be?"

She stepped fully inside the small greenhouse the family had built several birthday's ago for James, when Neville had mentioned that one day, plants were going to adore him. 'Addie', as was her pet name, sat down on a stool that was reserved for anyone talking to James while he was working. "I don't know. I thought you might have gone flying, at first. But your Mum said she wasn't letting you fly today."

James smirked. "Did you just come from the auto shop?"

She gave him a peculiar look. "How'd you know?"

He turned around, grabbed a towel, and handed it to her. "First of all, that's where you usually are when you're not with me or your dad. Second of all, you've got motor oil on your nose."

Her smile turned sheepish as she grabbed the rag and wiped her nose. "I didn't even do anything! He won't let me fix actual cars until I'm older. I was just lifting boxes..." She trailed off, then added quietly. "Of motor oil. Wow, I'm Einstein."

James laughed. She'd been doing that for years. "Oh come on, Addie. Not a big deal."

She shrugged. "My father wouldn't be proud."

"Hey, your father doesn't matter. You don't want the business, anyway."

She sighed and hopped off the stool. "I know."

She put his rag bag on the wall and leaned against it, watching James weed, water, and add soil to a number of plants that were unfamiliar to her. Sometimes she asked what they were, and James would explain. Today she didn't. Today she wanted to ask about something else. James's mother always let him fly. Unless..."there was another attack, wasn't there?"

James sighed. "I don't know. Dad was at the office all night. Mum refuses to say anything. But he flooed late, said he wouldn't be home." He shrugged. "That usually means something."

"It could have been...I don't know. Paperwork or something, right?"

As he worked on his plants, Addie had to strain her ears a little to hear him. "I guess. But then Mum wouldn't have cared if I asked to fly."

James was a good flier. He was also right. As long as he stayed within the grounds and didn't fly over to any muggle neighborhoods, his mother usually didn't mind. He was good on a broom, and she had a monitoring charm on it. Besides, she might have joined him, anyway.

They stood in silence for a while. Then he started smiling. "Hey Adalia, come check this out."

So she did. And she was rewarded with a gently opening, pink flower that shimmered a little. She'd long ago learned to suspend her disbelief on James's plants. "What is it, James? It very pretty."

He loved sharing his knowledge with anyone, and you could see it in his eyes. "Shimmer flower. When it gets a little more mature, it can be ground down into medicines. But right now, it just looks pretty."

"Cool." And it was. Adalia wasn't as fascinated as James seemed to be, but really, anything with magic was interesting. It was all so...Addie wasn't sure how to describe it.

Then Ginny poked her head in. "James, your father's back. We're going to have breakfast, and then take you and Adalia to Diagon Alley."

James nodded. It was only a few weeks before September 1st, after all. They needed to get school supplies, after all. "Alright. Just give me a minute."

She nodded and smiled at Addie before leaving. Addie noted the smile seemed a little strained. James saw it as well.

He looked over at Addie. "Well, you haven't seen Diagon Ally yet. It should be rather amazing. Ready?"

She looked down- she'd changed since the auto shop, so the simple shorts and t-shirt she was wearing had nothing coating it. Finally, she shrugged. "I think so. Do I need to borrow on of your robes to put over? We are still the same size, right?"

He looked her over- he had a bit more muscle than Addie, but not by much. "Yeah, I think. But you'll have your own robes after this. We can just stop at Madame Malkin's first if you really want to wear some. Still, Diagon Ally's not like Hogwarts. Muggle clothing's fine."

She bit her lip. "If you say so, then sure."

His smile grew larger. "Come on. You'll love it. You'll want to see everything all at once!"

All right, I'll cut it there and put the next part as a Diagon Ally chapter with all the characters. Keep sending in OCs!

Pink Phoenix Potter


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